Committees. The state-level Pradesh Congress Committee (or the Pradesh Election
Committee) might, for example, send representatives to constituencies to interview
potential candidates and to speak with MCC and DCC members. Determining the
competitiveness of a potential candidate required a detailed knowledge of factional, caste,
and religious divisions within a constituency, something that could not be evaluated from
New Delhi or even from state capitals.
The views of the Mandal and District party leadership generally weighed heavily
on the decision at the state level. After considering carefully the views of these local
party leaders, the PCC would make candidate recommendations to the Central Election
Committee (CEC). The CEC, drawn from the Congress Working Committee, would then
consider the recommendations and produce the final list of candidates.
In states with fairly stable Congress governments, the CEC generally left the
nomination decision at the Pradesh level.
When state parties were particularly faction-
ridden and unstable, the CEC would involve itself more deeply in the nomination
procedure. Even then, however, it was a mediator or arbitrator among competing state
factions, not a central organization imposing its will on subordinates.
Clearly, then, the Congress Party under Nehru was a broadly decentralized
organization. Sub-national elites maintained independent power bases in party factions,
loyal electoral support, local governing councils, and state ministries. Their preferences
were aggregated up through the party apparatus, and the central leadership provided
broad policy guidance while acting as a mediator of local and state interests.
Examining the Causal Linkages:
Did Party Decentralization Drive Economic Patronage Distribution?
9
Convention